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August 10, 2023
By Julian Atchison
Renewable ammonia
to support cotton farming in Australia
Hiringa Energy: the Good
Earth Green Hydrogen and Ammonia Project (GEGHA)
![](images/images_08_10_2023/hiringa-cotton.png)
Click to learn
more. The Good Earth Green Hydrogen and Ammonia Project (GEGHA)
will support cotton farming near Moree in New South Wales, Australia.
Source: Hiringa.
New Zealand-based Hiringa Energy
and Australian group Sundown Pastoral will develop a renewable ammonia
project near Moree, New South Wales. The Good Earth Green Hydrogen and
Ammonia Project (GEGHA) will produce ammonia-based fertiliser &
hydrogen for fuel cells to support cotton farming in the area. Based
at the Wathagar ginning facility, features include:
• 27MW of solar generation capacity
• Battery storage of generation to smooth generation supply profile
• A world scale hydrogen electrolysis plant (12MW), producing green
hydrogen from the renewable electricity and water
• A 10 tonne per day ammonia plant, to convert some of the green
hydrogen into green ammonia.
• Hydrogen storage and ammonia storage capacity to manage variable
renewable energy supply and seasonal ammonia demand
• Offtake of ammonia for direct use as fertiliser locally; and offtake
of green hydrogen to supply on-road heavy transport and on-farm energy
use in NSW regions.
Projects components of Good Earth Green Hydrogen and Ammonia
The project was one of two selected to receive funding this March as
part of the NSW state government’s hydrogen hub initiative. Via the
initiative, the NSW state government seeks to establish 700 MW total
of electrolysis capacity in the Australian state by 2030. To qualify,
projects must have established one local offtaker/end user. The
funding will support stage one of GEGHA, with expansion planned to
establish “medium-scale” hydrogen & ammonia production projects.
Hiringa is currently doing feasibility work on two future locations:
near the Moree Special Activation Precinct (SAP), and in the Riverina
region of southern NSW.
For project partner Sundown, GEGHA is part of their Good Earth Cotton
initiative: an effort to get climate-positive, traceable cotton into
the textile supply chain. Sundown reports that around 85% of carbon
emissions associated with cotton production in the area are from
fertiliser and fuel (transport and water pumping on the farm).
What’s…quite different here is that typically those [ammonia
production] plants are very large, and often located in a major
industrial area on the coast and connected to the international
markets through shipping.
What we’re looking at here is a small- to medium-scale version of that
located close to a renewable energy source that’s close to the farmers
that are using the ammonia as fertilizer. While that means there are
fewer economies of scale, there’s some significant advantages in terms
of the avoided cost of moving around ammonia.
David Heard, Hiringa’s Executive Director (Australia) in an interview
with AgFunder, 2 Aug 2023
FID is due next year, with production to start in 2025. Also in his
interview with media outlet AgFunder, Hiringa’s David Heard outlined
that – even though GEGHA is a smaller-sized, 10 tonnes ammonia per day
project – the project partners are targeting the 60 tonne per day
production mark, a point at which a project “wouldn’t need upfront
government capital funding”.
Green Play Ammonia™, Yielder® NFuel Energy.
Spokane, Washington. 99212
www.exactrix.com
509 995 1879 cell, Pacific.
Nathan1@greenplayammonia.com
exactrix@exactrix.com
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